'Planning & Implementing SOA: Ensuring the Successful Deployment of a Services-based Approach' available now through Aarkstore

"Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is destined to be one of the defining IT paradigms of the next decade. It promises the delivery of IT services in a loosely-coupled way that is more flexible and better aligned with business needs than previous architectures. SOA is an architectural style, not a technology, which allows the creation and maintenance of an IT architecture that supports business services and business processes, and also rapidly adapts to the changes within them.

The adoption of SOA has significant potential to improve the value organisations derive from their IT investments, in terms of increased flexibility, improved use of assets, alignment with business objectives, and reduced integration costs. However, there is still a considerable degree of hype and misunderstanding around the topic, with consequent confusion as to the exact definition of a SOA, and more importantly, how to begin to realise these benefits.
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Key Findings

*Over the next five years, SOA will transform the way IT and the organisation interact, enabling improved IT agility and the rebuilding of trust with the enterprise.
*Whilst still mainly in the proof-of-concept or pilot phase at many organisations, the adoption of SOA is continuing to gain momentum, despite challenges such as security, performance, and a lack of
available skills.
*When deploying SOA it pays to start small, but think big, and to choose a business problem that SOA can help resolve as a starting point.
*There is a great deal of synergy between Business Process Management (BPM) and SOA, with BPM providing a common point of reference for both the organisation and IT.
*The use of standards is crucial to enable interoperability, and to prevent vendor lock-in.
*A policy-driven approach is required to control and secure the services-based environment.
*Service quality is a key consideration if the goal of reuse is to be attained, encompassing a registry, governance, control, and management capabilities.
*It is important to address the implications that a move to a layered architecture can bring, and the wider operational aspects of supporting SOA.

Introduction
SOA is destined to be one of the defining IT paradigms of the next decade. It promises the delivery of IT services in a loosely-coupled way that is more flexible and better aligned with business needs than previous architectures. SOA is an architectural style, not a technology, which allows the creation and maintenance of an IT architecture that supports business services and business processes, and also rapidly adapts to the changes within them.

The adoption of SOA has significant potential to improve the value organisations derive from their IT investments, in terms of increased flexibility, improved use of assets, alignment with business objectives, and reduced integration costs. However, there is still a considerable degree of hype and misunderstanding around the topic, with consequent confusion as to the exact definition of a SOA, and more importantly, how to begin to realise these benefits.

Business Issues

The business drivers for SOA are consistent across all sectors, both public and private – process efficiency, visibility, flexibility, and agility, as well as cost reduction throughout the organisation. Organisations are also looking for a single view of the customer, providing visibility of data, orders, and invoices across multiple systems, and the ability to support multi-channel customer services.
The benefits of a successful deployment of SOA can have a dramatic impact on the contribution IT makes to the business. The approach opens up the opportunity for IT to become a service provider rather than purely a cost centre. Whilst these benefits are being achieved by early adopters, there are a number of organisational challenges which will need to be overcome in order to get the most from SOA. It is clear that SOA will require a substantial cultural change before real progress is made in bridging the divide between the organisation and IT.
SOA represents a transformation in the way the organisation operates, and executive sponsorship is therefore vital, as seen from many successful SOA implementations. Internal politics is often a major contributor to difficulties with SOA, especially as services and resources are now shared. There is a need for trust to be rebuilt by the IT department with the rest of the organisation, especially as in the past IT has been perceived as an inhibitor of progress, and there will be scepticism about this latest initiative. Starting with a small project that addresses a particular business problem can help to get the decision makers on board, although it is important to keep in mind the ultimate goal and have a plan as to how to evolve to SOA over the next five years.
Becoming a process-centric organisation is crucial to the whole concept of SOA. It is clear that business processes matter, and that organisations want to be capable of quickly modifying a process when necessary, so the existence of a business process layer that drives changes in services as the organisation adapts is vital. This means that services must be able to address specific business problems by drawing together the business logic and data sources from multiple underlying systems.
Modelling the enterprise offers a useful framework for documenting the organisation, providing the essential blueprints for the communication, interpretation, and implementation of value drivers throughout the organisation, whilst enabling the evolution to a service-centric IT environment. The use of industry and reference models can provide a useful starting point for a top-down approach.

Technical Issues

A SOA does not need to use Web services, nor do Web services explicitly require a SOA infrastructure, although it is almost impossible to discuss the one without some reference to the other. Web services is a collection of technologies and standards, including XML, Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web Services Description Language (WSDL), and Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI), which allow programming solutions for specific messaging and application integration problems to be built, providing a starting point and a proof-of-concept that SOA is a feasible strategy.
The maturing of Web services standards and technology has provided a mechanism for SOA to be successfully deployed, although standards advocated by one or a small group of vendors should be avoided where possible. From a business perspective it is no longer a technology issue. It is a matter of developing an architecture and framework within which business problems can be defined, and solutions can be implemented in a coherent and repeatable way, exploiting reusable services.

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